TRAVIS COUNTY, Texas — The search for a missing boater on Lake Travis will continue on Saturday after crews came up empty on Friday.
According to the Travis County Sheriff's Office, a 19-year-old disappeared Monday night during the boat ride back to a marina after visiting Devil's Cove.
"What we know is the boat was occupied by multiple passengers. It was ... at night, so it was dark," senior public information officer Kristen Dark told KVUE. "Somewhere in transit, this 19-year-old fell off the boat."
Crews have focused their efforts on an area north of Starnes Island.
"We have a vague area that we're looking in, which makes that search area very large," Dark said.
The search area for the missing boater is about 13 football fields long, Dark said, and with depth factored in, about 1 million square feet of water.
"Part of this water has an orchard underneath it, so we've got probably a pecan, maybe an oak tree orchard, and we have full-grown, 90-foot trees down there," Dark said.
The trees have made it difficult to use sonar, which is keeping search and rescue divers from going under.
"We have to keep in mind their safety. We don't want to lose someone else in this process, so we need to make sure that we have a good target when we dive," Dark said.
Shawn Hohnstreiter – chairman of TEXSAR, or Texas Search and Rescue – told KVUE his group had five boats, 10 K9s and about 15 personnel searching for the man's body on Friday. He said his K9s have been trained to pick up a scent as deep as 100 feet.
"We're picking up a larger cone area of scent and triangulating that into a more precise area to further work with sonar and dive operations," he said.
At least a dozen people are still missing in Lake Travis, according to the Travis County Sheriff's Office. Dark said the agencies involved will exhaust every measure they have to help find the missing man.
"These tragedies happen in a split second. It doesn't seem like the odds are that you would fall out of a boat, but you just never know," she said.
Dark emphasized the use of personal flotation devices as a way of remaining safe while having fun on the water.
"Wear that flotation device. We have never pulled a body from Lake Travis that was wearing a personal flotation device," she said.
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